


Just North of Proper Hysteria

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, First Time, Historical Accuracy, Literary References & Allusions, Love at First Sight, M/M, Miracles, Other, Turkey Red Carpet, Wingfic, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 20:43:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: The storm is here.Slowly, Aziraphale kneels.(or, Aziraphale and Crowley's first time)





	Just North of Proper Hysteria

Living above a bookshop solely run by the person living above it has many perks but also many drawbacks. Any attempted burglary is also a home invasion. Regular customers are all too aware the owner is often technically available even if the shop is closed. Personal mail is delivered with the business. Everything is, of course, at the mercy of ever changing zoning and health and safety codes.

Most, however, don’t have a demon standing, quite worse for the wear, in the back study. Nor do they have an angel, who is also the owner, fussing mightily over said demon, who upon closer inspection looks like he’s been partially blown up. No matter how one looks at it, the circumstances would have to be extraordinary for this to occur.

This is the angel Aziraphale’s bookshop. The demon is Crowley. The British and the Germans are attempting to blow each other up overhead.

It is the 18th of August, 1940.

“Really,” Crowley says as Aziraphale helps to get him into his desk chair, “it looks worse than it is.”

“Oh, hush,” Aziraphale says as he reaches down to help Crowley move his bleeding right leg to finally sit. “Whatever were you doing?”

“Got caught in a bit of flying,” Crowley chokes as Aziraphale attempts to pull away a strip of his shredded trousers that’s adhered to his open flesh.

“A bit?” Aziraphale says, rather shrill. “Don’t tell me you were about Biggin Hill—”

He coughs.

“Crowley!” and it’s not a scolding; it’s too hysterical. “I was explicitly told to _stay away_ —”

“Lucky y—” Crowley starts before abruptly shoving his knuckles into his mouth to cut off the shriek of pain.

Aziraphale accidentally touched where a patch of blackened flesh has begun to split. He jerks his hand away. 

“Sorry!” he squeaks, looking up to find Crowley, his hand still shoved in his mouth, has also covered his eyes with his other hand. “Oh, _Crowley_. Oh dear, oh no, look, just—stay. Right here—”

He stands up and hurries to the kitchen. He grabs the first aid kit he stocked for customers and occasional human business partners before realising it’s not going to be of much use. Nothing short of a miracle will be much use, but that is the surest way to bring the wrath of Heaven and Hell upon them. 

Just north of proper hysteria, he grabs the kettle of clean water from the stove, the scissors and bandages from the kit, and all of his tea towels. 

Crowley is looking down at his leg when Aziraphale returns. He still has his knuckles clenched between his teeth. There’s wet marks below his eye and down his right cheek. He glances at Aziraphale before hurriedly looking away, blinking hard.

Something deep in Aziraphale is screaming.

He sets his load on the desk. Shoves the blotter and his inbox out of the way. They tumble off the side with a loud clang and clatter. He turns to the side table. Grabs the half-empty decanter of a rich brandy. For a moment, he stares at it before praying that one tiny miracle will go unnoticed as he wills it to become clear gin. 

Crowley whimpers. 

“Right,” Aziraphale says, turning back and kneeling. “Let’s see.”

It is not, of course, about seeing. The wounds are obvious. They are quite another thing to fully take in. 

Aziraphale stares. Feels his lips parting. At a loss. 

“How did you get here,” he says, distant to his own ears. 

Crowley doesn’t respond. Doesn’t need to. His left leg and wing are essentially just one open wound. Aziraphale can see the bone of Crowley’s kneecap and the layers of charred tissue of his upper thigh. His left wing is worse, the feathers almost all burnt in some way and the underside open to the bone. 

The only reason Crowley is even here and conscious is by his absolute will. Aziraphale looks up. Crowley’s eyes, his usual glasses lost somewhere, gaze back. Golden. Unblinking. 

It’s taking every ounce of his abominable, incredible will to remain here. 

If he could heal himself, he would. There is no way to heal the wing but with divinity or demonic magic. Crowley is past his limit. A miracle for this would be a giant beacon that even the cherubs couldn’t miss. 

Aziraphale is scared. 

Crowley loosens his jaw. Too wide. His teeth are the snake’s. They left deep marks in his hand. His tongue slips in. Out. 

He is beginning to discorporate. 

“Hey, angel,” he rasps, tears on his eyelashes, “put on a record for me?”

Aziraphale stands up. He cranks the gramophone and sets the needle down on the record he left on. Judy Garland’s voice filters through the elbow to the horn. Crowley moans as Aziraphale returns to his kneeling position, picking up a towel and the gin.

“ _The Wizard of Oz_?” Crowley complains. 

Aziraphale ignores this. He wets the towel with the gin. Wipes the scissors and his hands. He holds out the gin to Crowley, who takes it with his right hand. 

“Don’t drink it all,” Aziraphale warns; he starts unlacing Crowley’s left boot; his body feels like it belongs to someone else; this won’t help; he feels distantly, faintly hysterical. “I only have wine after this.” 

“Yea,” Crowley agrees.

He takes one more slug of gin before placing the decanter on the desktop. Aziraphale stares at the top of Crowley’s sock. It’s soaked with dried blood and stuck to blistered skin and muscle.

Something is screaming. 

“What,” he asks, oddly for the first time, “happened?”

“A German plane,” Crowley says, very helpfully. “I was working on a weather balloon, and it— _arrrrghghh_ —fell on me.” 

Aziraphale bites his tongue to swallow the useless apology. It’s too hard. It doesn’t hurt. He finishes cutting away the sock. Crowley’s foot is surprisingly unmarred, which is probably why he could put any weight on it earlier. 

The screaming is getting louder. 

“Miracle you weren’t disincorporated,” Aziraphale chokes, throwing the sock behind himself. 

The only response is a weak whimper. Aziraphale stands up. He picks up the decanter. Takes a steadying sip. Swallows. Tasteless. Places it back down. Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley has his face covered. His shoulders shake.

Crowley cannot die, but there is no certainty he will be sent back from discorporation. If he is, he might not remember Aziraphale. He may not remember himself. 

This isn’t working.

Outside, the weather is clear and sunny. Ideal flying conditions. 

Absurdly, Aziraphale thinks of Noah. Of his wife, sons, and daughters. Of the ark and the animals. He thinks of Crowley shouting about the unicorn. Of Crowley peering at him over his glasses as the rains came. 

_All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died._

He looks up at Crowley. At his wings, dark and wide and bloody. The white of bone. The exposed quills and split vanes. Crowley, holding his body together with sheer force of will.

He thinks of how Crowley appeared on his doorstep. How he pounded on the door and screamed his name. 

_Aziraphale! Aziraphale! Please, angel, I need to see you. Please—_

The record stops. 

The only noise in the room is Crowley’s muffled, uneven whimpers and Aziraphale’s heavy, unsteady breathing.

The storm is here.

Slowly, Aziraphale kneels. 

“Crowley,” he says, very softly, a bomb:

“Cover your eyes.” 

 

In the beginning, God created two lights. The greater to rule the day. The lesser to rule the night. 

In Eden, there is no true night. There is always light. It isn't just the moon and the stars that shine in the cloudless sky. Greater angels than Aziraphale give off their own light, their divinity so great that they are themselves stars. 

When Adam and Eve were cast out, Aziraphale feared how they would fare. They had to travel with no light of their own. It frightened him to think of them lying huddled and cold without light because Aziraphale himself had never known the dark. Never known the cold. Had never known anything, then, but the warmth of God and the Light. 

So, east of Eden, he gave them his sword. Pressed his lips together and swallowed his fear. He prayed the flame, single and unyielding, would light the path ahead. 

In that moment, Crowley came to him. 

 

True miracles come not with a snap but The Word. 

Aziraphale is a Principality. A bookshop owner. A gourmet and a worshiper of books. He is not God nor was he created in God’s image. He is an angel. He is a creature created to suit a role in the ineffable plan. 

He doesn’t have time to consult a book. To construct a circle. To light the candles. To choose the right words. He does not think. Cannot.

He kneels at Crowley’s feet and folds his hands. 

_Dear God_ , he begs with his heart, his soul, his very essence and divinity, _this is the Principality, Aziraphale._

He closes his eyes.

_Forgive these wild and wandering cries._

“Angel?” he hears Crowley ask. 

_I beg your mercy._

“What are you doing?”

_I love him._

At first, there is nothing. 

And then –

 

Lost in the action of the day: 

Briefly, a bookshop on Waldour Street lit up in blinding white. 

But like a nightingale singing in Berkeley Square: 

No one saw. 

 

In a story of a storm, human cowardice, and greed, Jonah was in the belly of the great whale for three days and three nights. 

Crowley opens his eyes and sees—

“Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale stares up at him. His eyes are wide. Lips parted. His wings fold around his body, tips brushing the tops of his knees. His hands are clasped in prayer. His fingers are still coated in Crowley’s blood. 

“Crowley,” he whispers, soft and wondering and reverent. 

The pain is gone. 

Crowley looks down. Draws his wings forward. He is clean and smooth and pristine in a way he hasn’t been in a very long time. Outside of a concept of time. Outside of his understanding of space. His blood still streaks the floor, but the remains of his trousers pool around unmarred skin. Even the knuckles of his hands are clean of the gouges from his fangs. 

Aziraphale reaches up. Touches the wingtips of the feathers closest to him. Light and trembling. The blood on his fingers disappears against the glossy black. 

He looks upon Crowley as upon a star. 

“What,” Crowley whispers, warbles before Aziraphale surges up and kisses him. 

There’s a crash. Aziraphale’s desk. The kettle, extra towels, scissors, lamp. Crowley rocks in the chair. Nearly tips. His fingers fist into Aziraphale’s waistcoat, vest, shirtsleeves. Aziraphale pulls, feathers and fingers and flesh and Crowley –

 

At the Gate, Crawly peered. 

The angel held out his sword. The flame glowed high and bright. Crawly watched as the angel took Adam’s wide, blunt-nailed hand and curled each individual finger around the hilt. Adam and Eve gazed at the angel, human eyes no longer able to see the angel’s light, and were grateful.

But they did not understand. Crawly did. In wonder, he watched as the angel pushed Adam’s hand, secure upon the sword, away. 

To the humans, to the Fallen, Aziraphale, Principality and Guardian of the Eastern Gate, gave the gift of Life.

 

They are dancing together. 

In Heaven and the realm of the divine, in the before when the Morningstar sang alongside the rest: all of existence sparkled in God’s light. Crowley does not remember this, not as Aziraphale does, but there is muscle memory, impressions, sensations. Humans have it as instinct for they are made in God’s image. For an angel and a demon:

They are on the late-eighteenth century Turkey red carpet that warms Aziraphale’s study. Crowley is spread on his back. His left hand on Aziraphale’s right shoulder opens and closes. His right hand cups the back of Aziraphale’s head, fingers curled into his curls. 

“Aziraphale,” he breathes, small, shallow, useless gasps his body doesn’t need but is making on its own, “Aziraphale.” 

Crowley’s feathers are new and soft. Clean of oils and dirt and blood and fragmented bone. Aziraphale trails his fingers through them, disturbing and soothing soft down and bristle and filoplume. His mouth traces the curve of Crowley’s jaw. The delicate flesh beneath the ear. The warm, sensitive muscle beside rabbit quick pulse,

“Crowley,” he whispers, teeth on the curve of his shoulder, “I love you,”

and Crowley is alive.

 

In the fall of night, there are the telltale sounds of air raid sirens. 

There are many events for which the 18th of August, 1940 will be remembered. 

Aziraphale, feeling rather fuzzy, notices the decanter has ended up just above Crowley’s head. It still contains a thin layer of gin. 

He shifts, which makes Crowley’s eyes slit open. Reaches up and over Crowley’s face. The decanter feels heavier than it should as he dumps the contents into his mouth. Swallows partially. Throws the decanter out off to the side with a hollow thud before leaning down to pass the last of the gin through Crowley’s parted lips. 

Crowley’s eyes shut. He swallows. Clear and dry and heady. A laugh passes between their lips. 

“I love you, too.” 

Aziraphale pulls back. Looks at him. He grins, his whole face and the muscles in his neck and shoulders moving with it. Crowley smiles back. A little giddy. More than a little staggered. 

“What now?” Crowley asks, as the fire brigade passes somewhere near.

“Well,” Aziraphale says, a little lamely as the air raid sirens wind down, “yes.”

Now, there is a war on. There has, since humans and Heaven and Hell, always been a war on. Where they are in the action of the day remains to be seen. They know this. They witness it. It is written. 

Crowley came to Aziraphale, and Aziraphale took him as he came. 

Slowly, Crowley sits up. Aziraphale has to scoot a bit back. He rests his hands on the tops of Crowley’s thighs. Crowley holds Aziraphale around the waist, almost absentmindedly. The soft flesh of Aziraphale’s thighs fold over Crowley’s knees. 

They look at each other, a nose-width apart. 

“Did—” Crowley starts, his eyes flickering back and forth, pupils widening, thinning, “did you hear anything?”

“No,” Aziraphale answers, moving his fingers over the renewed flesh of Crowley’s left thigh. “It was…”

He shrugs. Smiles slightly, helplessly as Crowley’s heart pounds.

“Ineffable.” 

They stare at each other. Crowley’s fingers shift over Aziraphale’s sides. He leans forward and rests his forehead on Aziraphale’s right shoulder. Between their nakedness, soft and sinew and new, he can see the deep red of the carpet. Dyed from the root of rubia, steeped in liquor of ash, olive oil, and sheep’s dung and blood. Beautiful and coveted and utterly human. 

Aziraphale rests his cheek against Crowley’s ear. His wings fold around them. He rests the wrists over Crowley’s own. 

“I can’t,” Crowley mumbles, “believe this is happening.”

Aziraphale laughs. Not loudly or humourously. Just a gust of breath and a high note that isn’t a sigh or a tittering. 

“You needed to see me.”

Crowley laughs. Not dissimilarly. Outside, the Horsepersons in the hearts of humanity rage. Going down like a lead balloon. 

But inside—

“I did,” he admits as they tip down onto the carpet, “didn’t I?”

A demon and an angel huddle together against a dark and stormy night.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to connect with me on Twitter [@Metallic_Sweet](https://twitter.com/Metallic_Sweet)!


End file.
